


An Overflowing Sorrow

by AstroGirl



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Extra Trick, Flowey - Freeform, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26885389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: She has lost another.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	An Overflowing Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vantas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vantas/gifts).



> An extra treat (er, trick) for Vantas for the 2020 Trick or Treat exchange, because I could not resist their prompts! This one is based on [material posted by Toby Fox](https://undertale.com/alarmclock/flowey/), originally intended as part of an Undertale alarm clock app.
> 
> Warnings: Canonical child death, drinking, suicidal thoughts. Also note that the request was for something "the more soul crushing, the better." I definitely took a stab at it.

She has lost another. _Another._

She had thought this one, at last, would stay. This sweet, kind child who loved nothing more than to help her bake. Who greeted her in the morning with a plate of eggs and a gentle smile, who snuggled comfortably on her lap in the evenings as she read. Who hugged her whenever she looked unhappy, his tiny arms barely meeting around her body. Who could not bring himself even to hurt a snail.

He cried as he left. He told her he was sorry, that he didn't want her to be sad. But he left all the same, and she could not stop him. 

_Did_ not stop him.

She should have tried harder.

She thinks of him, alone in the snow. He should have taken a sweater. She should have seen to that much, at least. It is cold out there, and humans have no fur. The thin apron will be no protection at all. She should not have spent their last moments together pleading and demanding. She should have thought of the sweater. He should, at least, be comfortable and warm and cozy until he dies.

She should go after him. But she cannot. She _cannot_. She is needed here. She has to be here when the next one falls. They will need her, too.

 _Coward_ , a voice whispers in the back of her mind. _Coward._

She will endure here. It is what she does. She will... bake a pie? 

_Small hands, rolling out dough..._

No. No pie, not yet. Perhaps she will hunt snails.

 _"I'm sure they taste good, Ms. Toriel, but how would_ you _feel being baked into a pie? Can we just watch them for a little while, instead?"_

No. No. She cannot. She scarcely deserves to.

She wonders if he will make it as far as Snowdin, or if the sentries will find him in the woods.

**

Days pass. At least, she thinks they do. It is hard to tell, in the ruins. 

Every day, she stands in the kitchen and looks at her stove. And every day she turns away from it.

Every night, she tells herself she will sleep. But, useless creature that she is, she cannot manage to succeed even at that.

**

She has a store of wine, locked away in the cellar where the children cannot -- where the children _were not_ \-- able to find it. She has saved it carefully, all these years. One day, she had imagined, there might perhaps be something to celebrate.

Foolish of her. Deeply, deeply foolish.

She retrieves it. She drinks.

It may have gone a little sour. She finishes it anyway. 

Sour or not, it is potent, and even though she is a large monster, the magic of her soul is weak today from lack of food, and sleep, and other things. The wine works faster than she expected. And yet, it does not work at all. She has not forgotten that her children are dead, and that she is alone in the ruins. Still a failure. Still herself. 

Except that, once, she was someone made happy, even hilarious, by wine. She cannot be happy now. She cannot laugh. Some jokes are simply too terrible, even for her.

She lets the empty bottle slip from her hands and lurches out into the ruins. She believes in keeping a tidy home. If she is going to fall down and not get back up again, she does not want to do it inside, on the carpet.

She makes it to the base of the tree before she collapses. Perhaps this is a good place. She has always liked this tree. Perhaps the leaves will cover her here.

She closes her eyes. 

If she doesn't exist, it won't be her fault, whatever happens to next child, and the next. Nothing will be her fault.

Somewhere, she thinks she can hear laughter. Cruel, bitter laughter, no more than she deserves. But does she deserve for it to sound so much like Asriel?

She can almost imagine she sees him. Almost imagine she can touch him.

Perhaps she will be with him soon. Perhaps soon, she will never need to leave him again.

**

The darkness almost feels like peace. 

Almost.

**

Then it's gone, and she is still here.

When did she take herself back to her bed? She does not remember. She remembers only... only...

No. Whatever it was, it has left her.

She sits up. She feels...

She feels, at least, as if she has slept. More than that, she cannot say. 

She sits up and looks around her. There is a glass of water beside her bed. Abruptly realizing how thirsty she is, she reaches for it. And stops.

The glass is full. Up to the brim. _Beyond_ the brim. 

Her hus-- Asg-- The king used to do that. Filling every cup with as much as he could possibly get into it, never able to stop until he'd gone too far. 

And their son... In some ways, their son was so much like him that the thought of it breaks her heart.

She doesn't know what this water is doing here. But a memory tickles at the back of her mind again. A memory, or perhaps a dream. Of reaching out for Asriel, and touching something that both was and was not him.

Did she pour this water? Did... did someone else?

A thought cuts through the dry, empty ache in her head, makes the magic inside her churn and twist. Monster souls break when they die. They break and disintegrate and are lost forever. But her son, her Asriel, he became something else, before he died. He had shared a human's soul, had been one being, if only for a little while, with her dear, lost Chara. Perhaps...? Perhaps...?

"Asriel?" she calls out, her voice rough and raspy. "Asriel?"

But no one answers. There is no one here.

Foolish woman. Of course there isn't. There is nothing left of Asriel. _Nothing._

The water spills on the floor, onto her blankets, onto her fur.

Toriel rises from her bed and cleans it up, alone.


End file.
